


And That's Fine

by codeswitch, Poetry



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Audio Format: MP3, COUNTER/Weight - Freeform, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dom/sub, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Non-Sexual Kink, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 10:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codeswitch/pseuds/codeswitch, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: To be a very good dog, Orth Godlove thought as he hovered at the door of Ibex’s quarters, must be the finest thing in the universe. [text + podfic]





	And That's Fine

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was a true collaboration between two huge fans of Friends at the Table who wanted there to be podfic for it. Enjoy!

[Download or Stream](http://app.box.com/s/r7aaclyt8aa167awqd83x1sgs2u6xfyk)

 

“You’re a very good dog,” Ibex said to Orth, the day he first came to him for help, a smile slanting his lush mouth.

“Thank you,” Orth replied, not out of polite reflex, but because he meant it.

The thing about dogs is that they have a clearly defined and noble purpose: to accompany and guard their owners. If a dog stayed by their owner’s side and protected them no matter how terrible the threat, then even if the dog died doing it, afterward everyone would say: _there was a very good dog._

To be a very good dog, Orth Godlove thought as he hovered at the door of Ibex’s quarters, must be the finest thing in the universe.

Orth had to ask Ibex to let him in. He didn’t dare to think about what the rumor mill would have to say if anyone saw him pacing back and forth in front of Ibex’s door like a schoolgirl with a crush. His hand fluttered out to tap the comm panel. It beeped. “Hello?” he said. “It’s Orth. You, ah, you said over chips today I could come by any time, so I thought…”

“Of course,” Ibex said immediately. “Come in.” The door slid open.

Ibex’s quarters were really far too nice for a commissary worker. It was only officers and high-level scientists who got quarters to themselves. There were trinkets all around the room, hologram projections of cityscapes on Kalliope, prayer flags from a religious sect on Counterweight – favors from Ibex’s many friends in the fleet, Orth realized.

He hadn’t thought about what Ibex might _do_ in his quarters. He could only imagine the candidate, the executive, the charmer, not a man who slept and brushed his teeth. When he came in, Ibex was ironing the beautiful suit he’d come aboard in, the one with  no visible closures and a subtle iridescent shine. His tie was loose, his cuffs and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. He turned off the iron, smiled, and gestured toward the neatly made bed. “Always a pleasure to see you, Orth. Have a seat.”

There was no chair. Still, it felt significant to be invited to sit on his bed. Orth sat, rested his hand on the pillow, and resisted the urge to bury his face in it and find out what Ibex really smelled like. “I thought you slept in crew quarters.”

“I did,” Ibex allowed. “But then one of the officers of the King’s Gambit invited me to use these. How could I refuse such a kind offer?”

He moved next to the bed, raising his eyebrows in a silent question. Orth gestured next to him on the bed, and Ibex joined him, arranging himself in that elegant-casual way he had, a companionable distance between them. This close, in the privacy of this room, Orth realized for the first time that Ibex habitually wore makeup, subtle highlights around his cheekbones and eyes. He was not wearing it now. “What can I do for you?”

Orth was so mesmerized by this man he could sit here and stare into his un-made-up face for the rest of the night, trying to understand him. But that wouldn’t do. “You said you wanted to help me become a better leader. Teach me how to… step up and take charge.”

Ibex’s face sharpened into a smile. “And I have, haven’t I?”

“You help me make decisions,” Orth said. “And it’s a weight off my shoulders, it really is. But I’m not sure I’ve learned how to lead people, the way you do.” He leaned a little toward Ibex, his palms unconsciously turning up in a pleading gesture. “Teach me?”

“Well,” Ibex said, leaning into the word, “if you want to lead people, first you have to know what you want.” His eyes skimmed over Orth, and in an overwhelming rush Orth remembered that he, too, had a body, a tired one encased in a rumpled officer’s uniform.

Oh, Orth knew what he wanted. He wanted Ibex to look at him the way people looked at Ibex. “And then?”

“And then you move people so they do what you want.”

There was the catch. Ibex said  _ move people _ as if they were game pieces. When Orth tried to  _ move people _ it was more like they were a stampede. “How do I do that?”

Ibex’s smile shone like a drawn blade. “Let’s start with something simple. Move me.” As if that weren’t the most unthinkable prospect Orth had ever considered. Ibex was more than a stampede. He was a storm of solar wind. When Orth just stared at him, uncomprehending, Ibex took Orth’s hand and closed it in a grip around his other wrist. “ _ Move me _ .”

Orth’s gaze drifted to the loose tie around Ibex’s neck. His mouth went dry. He held the tie in a loose circle around Ibex’s neck and pulled his face closer. Even without makeup, his skin was so smooth. “Like this?”

That sharp smile pricked up the corners of Ibex’s eyes. “Just like that.”

Orth tightened his grip on the tie and held Ibex in place while he fumbled at the buttons on his shirt. It would go faster if he looked down, but he was hypnotized by the band of pale silver silk against the soft dark skin at Ibex’s throat, by the carelessness of his face, as if it were not concerning in the least that Orth had him by the neck. When the shirt was finally open, Orth finally indulged his curiosity and pulled Ibex’s throat right against his face, so Orth could sniff the hollow where his collarbones met. Everything was rationed nowadays, and Orth himself always smelled stale. But Ibex worked in the commissary, and he smelled warm, like oil heating in the pan. Orth pulled back and dragged his nails down Ibex’s chest, from collarbone to solar plexus to navel, just to see how far he could go. Ibex breathed into it as if it had been a soft caress.

Ibex had an elegant, tiered high-top like the prow of a ship. Orth didn’t know who in the fleet had done that for him; he shaved his own hair down to the scalp in front of the bathroom mirror every month, with a quick picture of the back of his head on his tablet to check if he missed any spots. Orth moved his grip from Ibex’s tie to his hair, burying his fingers in the soft curls, tilting his head back and holding it there. With his other hand he pushed off Ibex’s shirt, and finally, finally, he was holding someone other than Executive Ibex, Candidate of Righteousness. Orth didn’t know who this man was, exactly, but he was shirtless and regal and looked up at Orth with bright, dancing eyes.

With a firm tug in his hair, Orth moved him. Moved him down to kneel in front of the bed. “I haven’t taken my boots off in two days,” Orth said.

Ibex’s upper lip curled up, adding a flash of teeth to his smile. “Sounds awfully uncomfortable. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Orth tightened his hand in Ibex’s hair. “Take them off. The socks, too.”

“Of course.” Ibex unlaced Orth’s boots. He looked down and wondered if Ibex had ever unlaced someone’s boots for them before. It was hard to imagine. But ten minutes ago, Orth could never have imagined Ibex doing it for him. When he was done, Ibex rested his chin on Orth’s knee and looked up at him through his eyelashes.

Orth took a moment to wiggle his toes and enjoy the freedom of having the damn boots off. Then he hauled Ibex up by the back of his neck, like a kitten. He was bolder, now, the way he usually only felt inside a Rook. “Take my jacket and shirt off.”

“I’d be happy to.” Ibex glanced at the medals by the lapel as he unbuttoned the jacket. Orth wondered what those medals meant to Ibex, if anything. To him, they were a reminder of something he’d been actually good at, once. When the jacket was open, Ibex insinuated his hands under it, his face very close to Orth’s, eyes twinkling. Orth shivered at the warmth of Ibex’s hands through his shirt as he pushed the jacket off. He didn’t look away for one moment as he took off the shirt. His gaze was so vast and absorbing Orth had to grasp hard at his hair again to keep from disappearing in it.

Finally, Ibex’s hands pressed firm against his bare chest. His face was close enough that his breath puffed against Orth’s lips as he spoke. “Anything else you want?”

Now there, at last, was something Orth knew how to say no to when it came to Ibex. He tightened his hand in Ibex’s hair and tilted his head back. “I want to be clear. I don’t like sex. With anyone.” He steered Ibex’s face, precisely, so he could bite a kiss into his lips. “But I think I’ve just found that I quite like  _ moving _ people.” He gave a final nip to Ibex’s jawline. “Take my trousers off. I’ve spilled coffee on them twice.”

“Oh, well,” Ibex said, finding the faint coffee stains on the dark fabric with his fingers. “We can’t have that, can we?”

Having Ibex take them off was an unspeakable relief. Sitting in his underwear on Ibex’s bed, he felt more comfortable than he had in months. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in anything but his uniform. He held Ibex’s wrists together with one hand, and with the other, stripped off his trousers with the efficiency of a career military man.

Orth held Ibex by the wrists and by the corner of his jaw, and looked him over. His face and fingers and legs and torso were all long and tapering, all of him as smooth as if he’d just come off a lathe. There were many reasons why he’d been elected Candidate of Righteousness, and his beauty was one of them. 

Just when Orth was beginning to lose that sense of Ibex as something other than the Executive, he saw it. A constellation of moles on his inner thigh, down near the knee. Growing up in the sticky heat of Counterweight, Orth had run with countless other boys with their sarongs tied up so they fell above the knee, their bare legs speckled with moles. Ibex could have been one of those boys. Orth had no idea what his real name was or where he’d come from; it wasn’t on his Meshpedia page. 

Orth pinned Ibex’s hands to either side of him, bent his head, and bit the moles, one by one, very hard. Ibex shuddered and released a heavy breath with each bite, but made no other sound. It was only when Orth went back to kiss the moles that he let out a little “nnn” of surprise. When he had bitten and kissed each mole, Orth looked up at Ibex. And there it was, the miracle: Ibex’s mouth parted, as if he wanted to speak but had no idea what to say, his wide eyes taking Orth in, as if he wanted to understand him but could only begin to guess. 

That was the way people looked at Ibex. Especially Orth. And now that it was turned on him, enraptured, intoxicating, Orth thought: if I could do this to everyone, the way Ibex can do without even trying, wouldn’t I? How could I resist having this effect on people?

Ibex’s throat worked. “Anything else I can do for you, sir?”

That  _ sir _ electrified Orth. Common soldiers called him “sir.” None of the officers of the fleet bothered after the first month of terror and desperation. Ibex didn’t call anyone by their title. Orth imagined that if Ibex were to meet the Apostolosian Emperor himself, he’d walk right up to the throne and call him Pelagios. Without thinking, Orth said, “If you’re going to call me sir, what am I supposed to call you?”

Ibex’s eyelashes lowered. “Call me Attar.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means ‘precious boy.’ In the language where I come from.” 

Orth had no idea whether Ibex was lying. He could never tell. But it was something to call this man in black silk underwear with moles on his legs, so he grasped at it. He got back on the bed, and pulled Ibex by the back of the neck so he lay on top of Orth, his face pressed against Orth’s chest. Their legs slotted together, brown skin converging until Orth couldn’t tell where his ended and Ibex’s began. There was a contented little smile on his face, like a pleased cat. He added a gratuitous wiggle, rubbing his smooth-shaven cheek against the grain of Orth’s chest hair.

“Attar,” Orth murmured, stroking his hair, his other hand on his neck. It felt wonderful to gather all of Ibex’s beauty and power to him like this. Like a beloved pet. A pet cheetah, perhaps. Certainly not a dog.

Orth rested his thumb on the point of Ibex’s chin and tilted his face up. “How long can I hold you here, Attar?”

“You can keep me until my shift in the commissary in the morning. You should. You seem lonely. Power can do that, can’t it.”

Yes. Power. That’s what was isolating Orth. Not his own poor choices, or the shame that crawled over him at the sight of his friends, or anything of that sort. Of course. “What about you?”

“What  _ about _ me, sir?” The  _ sir _ was a tease now, not the shocking submission it had been when Orth had really moved him. The balance of power had shifted. Orth wondered, who or what is in control here?

“You’re powerful.” For some reason Orth couldn’t name, he moved his hand to a loose grip around Ibex’s throat. “Do you get lonely?”

When Ibex laughed, Orth felt the vibration in his palm. There was something a little black and bitter in his smooth laugh, a splash of coffee in a cup of cream. “Me? I’m never alone. I have Righteousness.”

Orth relaxed his grip and smoothed his hand between Ibex’s shoulder blades. Ibex gave a soft “hmm” and settled against his chest again. It occurred to him that Ibex said he was never alone, not that he wasn’t lonely. Perhaps he was offering to stay here tucked up against him out of the same need Orth had but could never admit to. The need for someone to hold through the night while they hurtled through the dark toward their doom.

No. He couldn’t entertain such romantic notions. Ibex is only doing this out of pity, Orth reminded himself, and he’ll never love me. And that’s… fine.


End file.
